Backyard Homesteading All-in-One For Dummies Paperback – Illustrated, April 30, 2019

A lot of great advice from the for dummies team again, I love these books. They have very easy to understand language and the ideas are realistic.

This is a great resource. I'm so happy I purchased this. I feel like I have all of the information needed in one book.

Doesn’t have all the information but a really good basic beginner book!!!

So, this is a pretty good guide, however I've noticed one important omission and two things that aren't entirely correct.First, the omission. The chicken predator chart should have rats on it. Large rats will eat a chicken alive while they're on the roost, starting at the vent, if they can get to them and if the rat doesn't have a food supply like in fall and winter. Yes, it's as horrible as it sounds. Keep a close check for any signs of rats, and you can't try to save the chicken it happens to since rats can carry so many diseases. I've had to put down one due to this.As for the two things that aren't entirely correct. The first is the spot where it talks about wearing protection anytime you go close to your beehive or you could have '60,000' bees after you. This is hyperbole. Honey bees are simply not that aggressive, not even the wild type of bees I have, and the only way you could have the whole hive after you is by literally kicking the hive over. Otherwise, it'll be a max of a couple hundred guard bees and even that is pushing it. I regularly stand within 15 feet of the front of my hive and watch them for minutes at a time with zero problem. The only time any have come after me without messing with the hive is when I bent over and smelled one of their flowers that was within 30 feet of the hive. Just don't mess with their flowers.The other piece of info concerns keeping fish, and the information is incomplete. You can only keep fish in an old swimming pool if you are far enough south, if you have a heater, or if the pool is in the ground. Where I live in Kentucky, our winters are not very long or cold, but it still gets cold enough to take out catfish (the most resistant you can keep) in an above ground pool like my experiment ended this past winter. I'd say that you can't keep fish successfully in an unmodified above ground pool any farther north than the Georgia/Tennessee line.I've read about 2/3 of this so far and haven't noticed any other issues, but these three are pretty big ones that could have been corrected with a bit more research. Anyone not on the lookout for rats will end up with a very sickening and major issue, so they need to know about rats and chickens. Anyone too nervous around their bees will possibly make other mistakes that are really important, so people should not be afraid of their bees. Anyone thinking about experimenting with keeping fish will lose hundreds of dollars to the cold if too far north, so need to know that not even catfish can survive even a short hard cold snap in an above ground pool.

I love the pictures that are included and I love how the book is set up. I got much more information than expected and I think it was definitely worth the money!

We are new to gardening in this book is really increased our base knowledge level and help us start our first gardens

Exactly as described, came as promised and perfect. TY!

This book covers so much as to growing,freezing, canning, dehydrating food, etc. as well as raising chickens, rabbits, keeping bees, Just a good read with lots of good information. I don't live on a farm but it has good information for me on .16th acre, and even has recipes.